John Elway is 52 years old, walks on an artificial left knee and hasn't played football since Bill Clinton was president. But Elway can still beat the snot out of New England quarterback Tom Brady.

In fact, Elway just did. Hurts, doesn't it, Mr. Brady?

Touchdown, Broncos.

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Wes Welker scored on a post route so deep it took the five-time Pro Bowler all the way from New England to Denver. He agreed Wednesday to join the Broncos as a free agent. Welker was rewarded for switching teams with a two-year, $12 million deal the Patriots were reluctant to give him.

Peyton Manning now has Brady's favorite little buddy as a pass-catching target.

You can hear the chowderheads curse Elway all the way from here in the Rocky Mountains.

This was a good get. It doesn't signal a seismic shift in the balance of NFL power, in the same way the acquisition of Manning did a year ago. Landing Welker, however, ignited the same fist pumps of celebration at Dove Valley headquarters. Why are those high-fives so significant?

The games on the field belong to the players. But this might well be Elway's favorite stretch of the NFL calendar. This is the time of year that old No. 7 can compete against New England coach Bill Belichick or anybody else in the league with designs on a championship.

For Denver, it's Super Bowl or bust.

You expected anything less, as Manning's window of opportunity closes a little with each passing day?

If it wasn't clear before, there's no mistaking the reality now. Elway is the team architect, but Manning is at the forefront of the boss' thoughts as roster plans are drawn. In fact, Elway has told me Manning should have some degree of input in crucial team decisions, the same as Mike Shanahan taking advice from his legendary quarterback when Denver was an elite NFL team.

Manning doesn't want to be the general manager of the Broncos. And the pursuit of Welker was particularly difficult for Manning.

Oh, Manning did place a recruiting call to the Patriots star.

Then, Manning had to make peace with the fact he was pushing old friend Brandon Stokley out of a job.

Make no mistake. Stokley is a major reason Manning chose Denver to begin chapter two of his NFL life. Manning is intensely loyal. Football is a tough business, and that's why, for any man with a heart, what makes football sense can also gnaw at the gut.

It appears the Broncos aren't trying to repeat their championship glory years of the late 1990s so much as they are reassembling a very convincing facsimile of the Indianapolis Colts' offense that Manning led to perennial Super Bowl contention.

Denver, which has vowed to play even faster than the 30-point-per-game offensive juggernaut of last season, can now line up Demaryius Thomas and Eric Decker as wide receivers, with Welker in the slot.

It has been an open secret since the end of the regular season the Broncos would like to upgrade at wide receiver, a move that seemed unfathomable to devotees of Thomas and Decker. While Thomas is on the verge of being a top-shelf No. 1 target, Welker has more than 750 career receptions on his NFL résumé, not to mention talent Decker can't match, with all due respect.

In a league with a salary cap, franchises that win the Monopoly money season know how to legitimately manipulate the budget. While it is overly simplistic to state, there's a kernel of truth to the idea that Elway took $6 million from waived linebacker D.J. Williams and passed it along to Welker. That's cash well spent.

"We wanted to get better. Obviously 13-3 was a successful year, but we lost our first playoff game, so we wanted to take advantage of an opportunity to get better," Elway said. "We'll continue to work on that during the free-agent period and then again in the draft."

Not only did the Broncos improve, they dealt a blow to New England, a consistent Super Bowl contender. Two birds. One stone.

Wonder how Brady feels now, after the glamour-boy quarterback restructured his contract for the purpose of keeping the Patriots on top during the twilight years of his NFL career.

The Manning vs. Brady rivalry has always been intensely competitive.

This is only a guess: The rivalry between the Broncos and Patriots just got hotter.